Children's Home, Residential special school run by Acorn Norfolk Limited in Norfolk

Inspection report children's home: SC435322 1 SC435322 Registered provider: Acorn Norfolk Limited

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Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children's home

This residential special school is registered to provide care for up to 40 children on 38- and 52-week residential placement options. The service specialises in working with children who have autism spectrum disorders, complex needs, moderate or severe learning difficulties, communication difficulties and challenging behaviour.

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Information about this children's home

The manager has been registered with Ofsted since July 2018. She has the experience and qualifications required for the role. She holds a relevant level 5 qualification.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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inadequate

How well children and young people are helped and protected inadequate

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inadequate

The effectiveness of leaders and managers inadequate

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inadequate

There are serious failures that mean children and young people are not protected or their welfare is not promoted or safeguarded.

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: declined in effectiveness

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inadequate

Enforcement action since last inspection: A monitoring visit was carried out in May 2018 to monitor two compliance notices raised at the full inspection. At this visit, the compliance notices were found to be met. Inspection report children's home: SC435322 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

07/03/2018 Interim Declined in effectiveness 07/06/2017 Full Good 13/07/2016 Full Requires improvement 18/05/2016 Full Inadequate Inspection report children's home: SC435322 3

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions that the registered person(s) must take to meet the Care Standards Act 2000, Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the 'Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards'. The registered person(s) must comply within the given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure—

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Requirement Due date

that the home’s day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm. (Regulation 12 (1)(2)(b))* 24/09/2018

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Requirement Due date

The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure—

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Requirement Due date

that the premises used for the purposes of the home are designed, furnished and maintained so as to protect each child from avoidable hazards to the child’s health. (Regulation 12 (1)(2)(d)) 31/08/2018

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Requirement Due date

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home that—

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Requirement Due date

helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and promotes their welfare.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to—

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Requirement Due date

use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b) and (2)(h))* 24/09/2018

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Requirement Due date

For the purposes of paragraph (3)(b), an individual who works in the home in a care role has the appropriate qualification if, by the relevant date, the individual has attained— 30/11/2018 Inspection report children's home: SC435322 4 the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare (England) (―the Level 3 Diploma‖); or

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Requirement Due date

a qualification which the registered person considers to be equivalent to the Level 3 Diploma.

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Requirement Due date

in the case of an individual who starts working in a care role in a home after 1st April 2014, the date which falls 2 years after the date on which the individual started working in a care role in a home; or

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Requirement Due date

in the case of an individual who was working in a care role in a home on 1st April 2014, 1st April 2016.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person may defer the relevant date if the individual—

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Requirement Due date

does not work, or has not worked, in a care role in a home for a prolonged period; or

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Requirement Due date

works, or has worked, in a care role in a home on a part-time basis. (Regulation 32 (4)(a)(b)(5)(a)(b) and (6)(a)(b)) The registered person must–

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Requirement Due date

ensure that each employee completes an appropriate induction; and

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Requirement Due date

that all employees receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33 (1)(a)(4)(b)) 31/08/2018

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Requirement Due date

A notification made under regulation 40—

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Requirement Due date

the other persons, bodies or organisations (if any) who or which have been notified; and

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Requirement Due date

any actions taken by the registered person as a result of the matter; and

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Requirement Due date

must be made or confirmed in writing. (Regulation 40 (5)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(b)) 31/08/2018 Inspection report children's home: SC435322 5 The independent person’s report may recommend actions that the registered person may take in relation to the home and timescales within which the registered person must consider whether or not to take those actions. (Regulation 44 (5)) 28/09/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must complete a review of the quality of care provided for children (―a quality of care review‖) at least once every 6 months.

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Requirement Due date

In order to complete a quality of care review the registered person must establish and maintain a system for monitoring, reviewing and evaluating—

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Requirement Due date

the quality of care provided for children;

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Requirement Due date

the feedback and opinions of children about the children’s home, its facilities and the quality of care they receive in it; and

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Requirement Due date

any actions that the registered person considers necessary in order to improve or maintain the quality of care provided for children.

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Requirement Due date

After completing a quality of care review, the registered person must produce a written report about the quality of care review and the actions which the registered person intends to take as a result of the quality of care review (―the quality of care review report‖).

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Requirement Due date

supply to HMCI a copy of the quality of care review report within 28 days of the date on which the quality of care review is completed; and

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Requirement Due date

make a copy of the quality of care review report available on request to a placing authority, if the placing authority is not the parent of a child accommodated in the home.

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Requirement Due date

The system referred to in paragraph (2) must provide for ascertaining and considering the opinions of children, their parents, placing authorities and staff. (Regulation 45 (1)(2)(a)(b)(c)(3)(4)(a)(b) and (5)) 26/10/2018

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Requirement Due date

* These requirements are subject to a compliance notice. Inspection report children's home: SC435322 6

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

This inspection identified significant safeguarding concerns that have recently put some vulnerable children at risk. Children are not safeguarded effectively. There are a high number of concerns about staff practice and conduct. Although there are children who have positive experiences, these are undermined by weaknesses in the help and protection that children receive and in the leadership and management of the service. Effectiveness in the latter two judgement areas is inadequate, limiting the overall judgement to inadequate. Despite this, some aspects of care are positive for children.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

There are some good additions of play equipment to the site. The sensory rooms are well equipped and accessible to the children. Sports play equipment, a bell tent, paddling pools and a soft play room help children to enjoy their leisure time. Some of the children help the staff to look after the animals that are kept on the premises, such as goats, chickens and guinea pigs. Children benefit from a range of leisure activities, including a holiday to Center Parcs, a holiday in Wales, cinema trips, bowling and trips to the local shops. This gives children new experiences.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff support children to maintain and improve their family contact. Visits home are facilitated well and families are welcomed to see their children, with accommodation provided for those families who live a long distance away.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff are equipped to communicate with children in the children’s preferred style. Consequently, children can make some choices about aspects of their care.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Feedback from parents and professionals is generally positive. They commented on well- planned admissions, strong support to families and the progress made by the children since arrival.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

Children are not safeguarded effectively. There are a high number of concerns about staff practice and conduct. Several members of staff have been suspended from their roles, and some other staff are not able to work with specific children because of concerns, some of which are under investigation. Some children have no or limited verbal communication, which makes them highly vulnerable. The number of allegations against staff presents a very worrying picture.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

Several members of staff are alleged to have caused emotional and physical distress to the children in their care. Some have failed to follow instructions and have contributed to escalating incidents that have placed children and staff at risk of harm. In some cases, there are repeating concerns about individual staff practice. The investigations into these concerns have lacked depth and safeguarding expertise. The manager has not been thorough. Actions to support staff and reduce risk have not been followed through. This has resulted in children being cared for by some staff who do not have the ability or Inspection report children's home: SC435322 7 skills to deal with high-level incidents.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

Despite clear indicators that some staff members’ practice is unacceptable, there are occasions when they have continued to work with the children. These staff have failed to provide a consistent approach in line with children’s behaviour management plans. This has caused confusion during times when other staff are working hard to manage behavioural incidents. Poor managerial oversight has allowed this to continue.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

A serious incident, during which a child got into the maintenance yard and a member of staff was seriously injured, could have been prevented. The staff used a physical intervention ground hold to ensure everyone’s safety and the hold was justified given the environmental dangers. However, the yard should not have been accessible. A health and safety incident record was not made following this incident. There was no risk assessment completed, and the maintenance yard was found by an inspector to be open again during the inspection. The site risk assessment fails to include the maintenance yard despite this being a high-risk area of the site. There is a lack of monitoring and accountability from all of the staff on site in the reporting, risk assessment and monitoring of this evident risk.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

There are an extremely high number of physical interventions. These are carried out by trained staff, most of whom have advanced training. Monitoring and oversight of these incidents is being scrutinised and has identified some of the practice concerns. This demonstrates some improvement in terms of oversight and monitoring of physical intervention.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

The children are supervised at all times and incidents of bullying or children leaving the site are rare.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Managerial oversight of this large site is inadequate. There are monitoring systems in place but these are not followed consistently, and accountability and oversight are unclear and disorganised. Failure to provide effective monitoring has left children without adequate safeguards.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The site is expansive, with a number of residential houses and a very large staff team. The leadership and management of this large site is ineffectual. The oversight of actions following staff performance concerns and referrals to the designated officer is extremely poor. Although referrals are made to the designated officer, there is a lack of clear and consistent management of staff for whom there have been practice concerns. There is a lack of evidence to show that identified actions to mitigate risk have been followed. Some concerns raised by staff have not been acted on. In one case, this resulted in a significant incident that had a negative impact on a child.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The quality of supervision records is poor, despite their having been audited and signed off by the manager. The records do not clearly reflect the actions that should have been taken to address performance issues. This reduces the effectiveness of the support and Inspection report children's home: SC435322 8 guidance available to staff and it has meant that staff members who have failed to manage incidents safely continue working with children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

There are high numbers of new staff. Recruitment and retention of staff continue to be a challenge. There are 10 staff who have not yet completed a relevant level 3 qualification within requisite timeframes. New staff are enrolled without delay; however, the induction process does not meet their needs fully. Feedback from one staff member was that the process is poor. Induction records stay with the inductee so it is difficult for managers to check that the process is being followed properly and that new staff are receiving the support that they need. The system does not enable the manager to monitor the progress of new staff.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Lack of effective monitoring means that significant concerns have not been identified and mitigated. This puts children at risk of harm. The manager’s monitoring reports for January to March 2018 and April to June 2018 contain details of incidents but very little evaluation of the effectiveness of actions taken in response. Monitoring activity does not identify patterns and trends or provide clear indicators of strengths and areas for improvement. This weakens oversight of the extensive site and the large staff team. Actions for improvement are not clear in terms of responsibility and measures of success. The report for the six-month period from January to June 2018 has not been submitted to Ofsted.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Independent monitoring visits are conducted monthly and the reports are submitted to Ofsted. These reports do not reflect the serious failings identified during this inspection, in particular, allegations and incidents that have had, or have the potential to have, a highly negative impact on children. A lack of recommendations for improvement means that the manager is not supported to address concerns and make improvements. This reduces the value of the role of the external visitor as a safeguard, leaving children vulnerable.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

There are positive relationships between external professionals and the staff. These relationships work well to provide holistic support for children.

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Information about this inspection

Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children and young people. Inspectors considered the quality of work and the differences made to the lives of children and young people. They watched how professional staff work with children and young people and each other and discussed the effectiveness of help and care provided. Wherever possible, they talked to children and young people and their families. In addition, the inspectors have tried to understand what the children's home knows about how well it is performing, how well it is doing and what difference it is making for the children and young people whom it is trying to help, protect and look after.

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Information about this inspection

Using the 'Social care common inspection framework', this inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000 to assess the effectiveness of the service, how it Inspection report children's home: SC435322 9 meets the core functions of the service as set out in legislation, and to consider how well it complies with the Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the 'Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards'. Inspection report children's home: SC435322 10

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Children's home details

Provision sub-type: residential special school

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Children's home details

Registered provider: Acorn Norfolk Limited

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Children's home details

Registered provider address: 1 Merchants Place, River Street, Bolton BL2 1BX

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Inspectors

Deirdra Keating: social care inspector Louisa Bayley: regulatory inspection manager Inspection report children's home: SC435322 11 achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children's services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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